Summary: Growing in the area of commitment

"9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect (fully committed) toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars..."

2 Chr. 16:9

The advise was everywhere this week. You couldn't ignore it. You could read it in the newspaper, hear it on the radio, watch on the television. Everybody was saying the same thing all week: ignore the daily ups and downs and commit to the long term. They were talking about the stock market, but they could have been talking about life. History shows that long term commitments pay off.

The sad thing is that today in our society as technology is speeding up the pace of change people are more and more reluctant to make long term commitments. We don't want to be committed to anything. We don't want to commit to a long term job. We don't want to commit to a long term marriage. We don't want to commit to long term investments. We don't want to commit to a church. We don't want to commit to anything. In fact, if there is any operational attitude today it's "I want to keep my options open. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want to commit to anything because life is a buffet and I don't want to get to the end and say, `Oh, I filled my plate up with the wrong stuff!' Some of you listening to this message are little more than spectators because you will not commit to faithful church attendance, giving consistently, Christian service or anything else. I suspect that some have made up their minds that they are not going to commit themselves to on a "Together We Build" stewardship campaign covenant card because of the challenge of a long term commitment even though we've made it plain that they can revise it, cancel it and no one will ever contact them!

That's tragic because the fact is you can't live without making commitments. You can't buy a house without making a 10, 15 or 30 year commitment. You can't get married without making a commitment get a license, a ring, blood tests, place to live, etc. You can't even get a driver's license without making some kind of commitment like a driver's education course. Nothing great ever happens without making commitments. If we go through life without making any commitments we just drift without any purpose.

So today I want us to look at "Building a Life of Commitment." I want us to look at what the Bible says about the power of commitment, the price of commitment, the pitfalls of commitment and the payoff for commitment. First, let's consider;

I. THE POWER OF COMMITMENT

What does the Bible say about the power of commitment? Although you will not find this word in the Scriptures per se, the Bible does have a lot to say about the principles behind this subject and it says that nothing affects your life more than the commitments that you choose to make. In fact, our commitments have three profound affects on our lives;